A fairy tale interrupted by war

Susanna Moore’s Life of Objects reminds us that people have very different ways of reacting to even the worst sort of trauma. It begins simply: Beatrice Palmer, an Irish Protestant girl, longs to get away from her undemonstrative family and her dull and backward part of the world. Like some scullery maid in a fairy tale, her ticket out is her ability to make lace. But Moore also reminds...